Profiles of our e-Course Moderators

Since year 2000, UNITAR has commissioned a number of senior international experts to write the content for UNITAR's debt programme e-Learning courses. These experts have not only provided the basic content and documentation to UNITAR for its e-Learning initiative, but have also contributed to this initiative in a pedagogical and practical manner. Content writers for our eCourses subsequently mentor and moderate our eCourse discussion forums. UNITAR wishes to thank the experts for their tremendous commitment and also for their interest in UNITAR's e-Learning activities. What follows is a brief profile of our eCourse content writers and moderators.

Dr. Vinod K. Agarwal

Course Director for eCourse on 'Arbitration and Alternative Dispute Resolution' and 'Drafting and Negotiating Clauses of Loan Agreement'

Dr. Vinod Agarwal last held the post of Law Secretary to the Government of India (highest Civil servant). In that capacity, he was Appellate Authority for hearing and deciding appeals against the awards of the Permanent Arbitration Machinery of the Government of India. He had been a Member of the Securities and Exchange Board of India for about two years. Thereafter, for more than two years he was Secretary General of the International Center for Alternative Dispute Resolution, New Delhi.

Presently, he is attending a large number of international and domestic arbitration cases, both as arbitrator and as a lawyer. He has conducted some of the arbitration cases under the Rules of Arbitration of the International Chamber of Commerce, International Court of Arbitration, Paris. He has decided, as an arbitrator, a large number of cases of domain name disputes referred by the World Intellectual Property Organization, Arbitration and Mediation Center, Geneva and Asian Domain Name Dispute Resolution Center, Hong Kong.

Academically, he holds the degrees of LL.M. and Ph. D. in Law from the University of Bombay, India. He had been a student of the Hague Academy of International Law, The Hague; Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, University of London; Institut d'Etudes Europeennes, University of Belgium; International Institute for Hydraulic and Environment Engineering, Delft, The Netherlands etc. He enrolled as an Advocate in 1963. He is also a Notary Public. He became a Solicitor of the Supreme Court of England and Wales in the year 2000.

Mr. Anil Bisen

Course Director for eCourse on 'Basic Course on Public Debt Management'

Mr. Anil Bisen has been an international consultant, teacher and a debt manager. His strength lies in the ability to explain difficult concepts in a user friendly language using simple illustrations.

Mr. Bisen is presently working as Director, Planning Commission Government of India. He was earlier IMF Public Debt Management Adviser, in the Ministry of Finance, Republic of Tajikistan in Central Asia, where his responsibilities included training External Debt Department staff in debt management concepts and practices, developing an effective monitoring system and providing debt management advice to the Government. It also included teaching basic debt management skills at the five country regional workshops under the IMF Technical Assistance project.

Mr. Bisen has had a long innings (1986 - 2001) at the Ministry of Finance, Government of India where he was responsible for monitoring and management of external debt. He was Director, External Debt Management Unit during 1996 - 2001 and is credited with placing India on the global best practices map.

Mr. Bisen has also been associated with a number of committees and study groups. He was Member of the Task Force on External Debt Statistics, which submitted its report in 1992 and was first of its kind in an emerging economy. He has also been consultant to the Commonwealth Secretariat London, where he was associated with writing the debt management manual.

Prof. Daniel D. Bradlow

Course Director for eCourse on 'Negotiation of Financial Transactions' and 'Global Financial Governance'

Daniel D. Bradlow is Professor of Law and Director of the International Legal Studies Program at the Washington College of Law, American University, Washington, D.C. where he specializes in international economic law. His current scholarship focuses on the international financial institutions, the international legal aspects of sustainable and equitable development, and the legal aspects of debt and financial management. He is a Senior Special Fellow in the Legal Aspects of Debt and Financial Management Programme of the United National Institute on Training and Research (UNITAR) and is a consultant to the World Bank. He has worked as a Consultant to the World Dams Commission, MEFMI (The Macroeconomic and Financial Management Institute for Eastern and Southern Africa) and the MacArthur Foundation and served as an advisor to the Rethinking Bretton Woods Project. In 1996 he was a Visiting Professor at the Community Law Centre at the University of the Western Cape, South Africa. He has lectured in the United States and many countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America on both the public and private aspects of international economic and financial law and on the negotiating and structuring of international economic transactions. Prior to joining WCL, Professor Bradlow was a Research Associate at the International Law Institute and a consultant to the United Nations Centre on Transnational Corporations, as well as an attorney in private practice.

He has edited books and published articles on international financial law, the international financial institutions, foreign investment, the World Bank Inspection Panel, globalization and its implications for global economic governance and the changing responsibilities of the World Bank and the IMF in the management of the global economy. Professor Bradlow holds degrees from the University of Witwatersrand in South Africa, and Northeastern University and Georgetown University in the USA and is a member of the New York and District of Columbia Bars.

Prof. Stuart R. Cohn

Course Director for eCourse on 'Capital Market Development and Regulation (Fundamentals and Advanced)' and 'Fundamentals of Corporate Governance'

Stuart R. Cohn is a Professor of Law and Associate Dean for International Studies at the University of Florida Levin College of Law, Gainesville, Florida, and a Senior Special Fellow of the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR). Professor Cohn specializes in business law matters, including the formation and structure of business enterprises, capital formation through private and public financing, the trading of securities in the secondary market, and major transactions including mergers, acquisitions, and takeovers. He received law degrees from Oxford University, Oxford, England, and Yale University in the United States.

Professor Cohn has lectured and conducted regional workshops on behalf of UNITAR and others in Europe, Africa, and the Far East on Capital Market Development and was the opening speaker of the UNDP-NYSE conference on African Stock Exchanges held at the United Nations in April, 2003. He is the author of Capital Market Development in Uganda, published by the International Law Institute, Securities Counseling for Small and Developing Companies, published by WestGroup, and numerous articles in the fields of company and securities laws. He is a member of the Federal Regulation of Securities Committee of the American Bar Association and the Executive Council of the Business Law Section of The Florida Bar.

Dr. Enrique Cosio-Pascal

Course Director for eCourse on 'Debt Rescheduling with the Paris Club', Debt Rescheduling with the Paris Club', 'Risk Management (Fundamentals and Advanced)', and 'Audit of Public Debt'

Dr. Enrique Cosio-Pascal is presently a Free Lance consultant. DR Cosio-Pascal worked for the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) for 22 years where his last responsibility was Chief of the Debt and Development Finance Branch (DDFB). The DDFB is composed of the Finance for Development (FD) Programme and the Debt Management and Financial Analysis System (DMFAS) Programme. The DF provides assistance to developing countries and countries in transition when attending the Paris Club and represents the Secretary-General of UNCTAD to the Paris Club. The DMFAS Programme provides technical assistance to more than 50 countries to assist their governments to improve the management and control of public debt.

Dr. Cosio-Pascal has also supplied substantive backstopping to the Government of Mexico and other developing countries' Governments on external debt negotiations with the Paris Club and with Private Banks.

Before working for UNCTAD, Dr. Cosio-Pascal was a staff member of the General Directorate of International Financial Affairs (Dirección General de Asuntos Hacendarios Internacionales) at the Ministry of Finance (Secretaría de Hacienda y Crédito Público) in Mexico.

Dr. Cosio-Pascal holds a B.Sc. in Applied Mathematics option Actuary, an M.A. in Economics and an M.Sc. in Mathematical Statistics. He is Statistical Engineer from the French "Ecole Nationale de la Statistique et de l'Administration Economique" (ENSAE) and obtained his Ph.D. in Econometrics at the University of Paris I, Pantheon-Sorbone, in 1975.

Dr. Aboubacar Fall

Dr. Aboubacar Fall is currently serving as a Principal Legal Counsel at the Legal Department of the African Development Bank Group (ADB). In that capacity he is in charge of negotiating and drafting loan agreements both with public and private sector, as well as implementing the AFDB's policy on Good Governance. The latter en compasses components such as legal and judicial reforms, public resources management and public participation.

Prior to assuming this position, he worked as Business Law Expert at the World Bank funded Legal Reform Committee in SENEGAL dedicated to building the capacity of the Private Sector, mainly with respect to the new harmonized business law in Africa (OHADA).

Dr. Fall holds a Doctorate in International Business Law from University of Rouen, a Master degree in International Trade, a Master degree in International Transportation from University of Paris I - Sorbonne and an LLM from University of Washington (Seattle).

He is a former Hubert Humphrey Fellow and a Member of the Senegal and Paris Bar Associations. He is a member of esteemed professional institutions such as the International Bar Association, the Africa Committee of the ABA Section on International Law and the International Law Association. He has an extensive international teaching and consulting experience and has published several scientific articles.

He is the Executive Secretary of the African Law Institute (ALI), an independent African think tank dedicated to simplification and harmonization of laws as well as research and training.

His areas of specialization include:

Legal aspects of debt management and national budgeting (civil law countries);

Negotiation and drafting of loan agreements;

African Development Bank Agreements;

Water & Environmental law

Shipping & Marine Environmental Law

Foreign Investment and Public-private partnerships; and

Alternative Dispute Resolution & Arbitration.

Dr. Ramandeep Kaur Chhina

Course Director for e-courses on ‘Fundamentals of Anti-Money Laundering: International Standards and Compliance Issues’, ‘Combating Corruption in Public Financial Management’, ‘Managing Public Finance: Internal and External Controls’, ‘International Players in Public Finance and Debt Management’, ‘Multilateral Trade Negotiations: Tips and Techniques’ and ‘Leadership Skills for Financial Managers’

Dr. Ramandeep Chhina is a Lecturer in Business law at Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, UK. She did her BA (Laws), LLB and LLM from Guru Nanak Dev University, India and her second masters (MSt in Legal Research) and doctorate (DPhil) from the University of Oxford (UK) in transnational commercial law. Her book on 'Standby Letters of Credit in International Trade' has been published by Kluwer Law International in December 2012, analyzing the application of the fraud exception to international trade finance instruments – letters of credit – in comparative perspective.

Dr. Chhina is currently a qualified non-practicing solicitor of England and Wales, UK. She has an extensive experience as a practitioner and academia in the field on international trade finance, business law, law of financial crime and public finance management. She practiced with a law firm in UK as a solicitor in their financial crime department handing multi-million pound fraud cases involving money laundering, conspiracy to defraud, fraudulent trading (MTIC Fraud, VAT Fraud and Carousel Fraud), and financial services offences.

Dr. Chhina has extensive experience in training, mentoring and capacity building development. She has been involved working with UNITAR since 2009 to design, develop and deliver e-learning courses as a Consultant. She has also worked on the USAID funded 'Modernising Financial Institutions (MFI)' project in West Bank (Palestine) as a consultant advising the Ministry on developing a regulatory framework to effectively monitor the movement and production of precious metals in the territory and also facilitates the development of anti-money laundering measures specific to precious metals and precious stones in the region. Previously, she also worked for five years as a Consultant Lecturer with FLE Legal Education, India (a company that worked in collaboration with Central Law Training, UK) and imparted training to professionals in India to qualify for the UK’s Qualified Lawyers Transfer Test (QLTT). Dr. Chhina has also delivered Continuing Professional Development (CPD) courses, which were fully accredited by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA), to solicitors in UK on UK’s Anti-Money Laundering Regime, Financial Services and Professional Ethics.

Prof. Alexander Pierre Faure

Course Director for eCourse on 'Fundamentals of the Money Market', 'Fundamentals of the Bond Market', 'Fundamentals of the Foreign Exchange Market', 'Fundamentals of the Derivative Markets', 'Fundamentals of the Equity Market'

AP (Pierre) Faure [Dipl (Agriculture), MA (Economics), DPhil (Economics), Member of the SA Institute of Stockbrokers] is the Foord Professor in Investments at Rhodes University in South Africa. He has been in academia for only the past 7 years. Before this nerdy phase of his life he was involved in the financial sector, and specifically in the following:

Central banking. Pierre was involved in compiling monetary statistics and later in the execution of monetary policy (open market operations and accommodating the banking sector) of the central bank.

Private sector banking. He was involved in establishing South Africa’s fourth discount house. These specialised banking institutions emerged in the English banking system in the 19th century and played a major role in developing the money and bond (interest rate) markets and in monetary policy. They are interesting institutions in that they bring about efficiencies in the interest rate (ie banking) markets and in so doing cause their own demise (when they convert to fully-fledged banks). Many African countries followed this route in their financial sector development, and two still have discount houses (Pierre serves on both boards of directors presently).

Stockbroking. Pierre was a partner in a firm that specialised in money and bond market dealer-broking.

Analyst. Pierre was a money and bond market analyst with the above and other firms, and was designated top-rated analyst in a national survey in the eighties (there were only two analysts vying for the honour and the other one was deaf, blind, mute and cognitively challenged).

Since leaving university (in the olden days) Pierre has had a passion for writing academic articles and e-books for educational purposes. They are used in various combinations by a number of universities, in the official training of broker-dealers, by a number of companies and a number of other institutions.

Mr. Nihal Kappagoda

Course Director for eCourse on 'Effective Public Debt Management'

Mr. Nihal Kappagoda is a senior international consultant with 35 years experience at the national and international levels as a macroeconomist and specialist in debt management. He works as a free lance consultant since 1989. Immediately prior to this he was the Director, Technical Assistance Group of the Commonwealth Secretariat where he launched the programme of advisory services in debt management. This included the CS-DRMS debt management software used in 50 countries with seven of them outside the Commonwealth. He worked in the Development Policy Office of the Asian Development Bank coordinating a study on the Bank's Priorities and Plans for the 1980s. From 1973-81 he worked for the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) in Canada, first as Director of the Regional Office in Singapore and later as Vice President Planning in Ottawa. His work in Sri Lanka was at the Central Bank and Ministry Planning. He was responsible for the country's external borrowing program as head of the External Resources Division.

From 1989 he has undertaken debt management consultancies for the Asian Development Bank, Commonwealth Secretariat, Department for International Development (UK), IDRC, UNDP and World Bank during which he delivered several training programs. He has worked in other areas for these agencies and the Canadian International Development Agency and North-South Institute.

Nihal Kappagoda was born in Sri Lanka and holds a Master of Philosophy degree in economics from the University of Oxford where he was Sri Lanka's first Rhodes Scholar. He has written two books and published numerous journal articles including some in the field of debt management.

Prof. Bolaji Owasanoye

Course Director for eCourse on 'Understanding International Contracts and Loan Agreements', Legal Aspects of Public Debt Management', and 'International Players in Public Finance and Debt Management'

Consultant -- UNITAR on Legal Aspects of External Debt and Financial Management; UNICEF on the Implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of the child in Nigeria; ILO on the International Programme on the Elimination of Worst Forms of Child Labour in Nigeria; West African Institute for Finance and Economic Management (WAIFEM) International Law Institute (ILI) African Legal Center for Excellence. Ag. Executive Director and Trustee, Human Development Initiatives (non-governmental organisation). Member, Nigerian Society of International Law, Association of British Council Fellows, Nigerian Bar Association, International Bar Association, National Geographic Society.

Research/Teaching Experience -- Coordinator, NIALS Project on Annotation of Federal Laws, 1992 to date; Faculty Member, Continuing Legal Education programmes on Legal and Legislative Drafting, Negotiation of International Contracts, Legal Aspects of Debt and Financial Management, Children Rights; Coordinator, National Conference on External Debt and Financial Management in Nigeria, 1996; Asst. Coordinator, NIALS/Ford Foundation Rights of the Child Project 1992-1996; Co-ordinator, National Conference on the Family Law Centre Project, 1991; Coordinator, NIALS/USIS National Workshop for Judges on Individual Rights under the 1989 Constitution, 1992; Supervisor, NIALS/Ford Foundation Family Law (Legal Aid Clinic) Project 1984 - 1991; Supervisor, UNICEF/WORDOC Human Rights Project on Situation Analysis of Woman and the Girl Child in Nigeria; Lecturer/Adjunct Professor, Lagos State University, 1986-1996; Member, Legal Sub-Committee on the Reform of Anti-Trust Laws in Nigeria 2001; Member Law Revision Committee on the Review of the Laws of Nigeria 2001; Senior Special Fellow, United Nations Institute for Training and Research, 2001; Participant, Stakeholders Forum of the Debt Management Office, Nigeria.

Prof. Kunibert Raffer

Course Director for eCourse on 'Millennium Development Goals and Debt Management'

Associate Professor at the Department of Economics of the University of Vienna

1979-80 and 1983-84 consultant to UNIDO

1986-89 visiting lecturer and visiting professor, University of Klagenfurt

1989 Visiting Fellow of the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) at the University of Sussex [academic sponsor: Sir Hans (H.W.) Singer]

1990-93 Honorary Research Fellow, Department of Commerce, University of Birmingham (UK)

1998 participation in the UNDP's research project "International Development Cooperation and Global Public Goods"

Since 2002 Senior Associate of the New Economics Foundation, London (Think Tank of the Year 2002)

Winter Term 2002-03 Visiting Professor at the Centre for the Study of International Institutions (CSI), SOWI Faculty, University of Innsbruck

Present Research Interests:

International Trade, International Finance & Debts, Aid

Dr. Sabine Schlemmer-Schulte

Course Director for eCourse on 'Negotiation of Financial Transactions'

Dr. Sabine Schlemmer-Schulte, a German national, is Visiting Scholar/Professor at the Max-Planck-Institute (MPI) for International Law in Heidelberg, Germany. Her research and writing focuses on the reform of the international financial, monetary, and economic order. In addition, she is an Expert with the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR). On an ad hoc basis, she serves as a consultant with the international financial institutions and further public or private institutions or firms.

Dr. Schlemmer-Schulte joined the MPI after extensive experience as practitioner and scholar in the field of international and European financial, monetary, and business law in various capacities. Major previous posts she held include Visiting Professor of International Law at the University of Leiden, The Netherlands (2003); Senior Counsel/ Special Advisor/Chef de Cabinet, Office of the Senior Vice President and General Counsel of the World Bank in Washington, DC (1995-2002); Counsel, International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes in Washington, DC (1994); Assistant Professor at the Institute of European Studies of the Saarland University in Saarbrücken, Germany (1990-1992); and Associate with the law firm Freshfields Deringer in Cologne, Germany (1988-1989).

As Adjunct Professor, Dr. Schlemmer-Schulte has been teaching international and European financial, monetary, and business law at several schools in the United States (Washington College of Law of American University in Washington, DC; School of Advanced International Services of Johns Hopkins University in Washington, DC; and John Marshall Law School in Chicago, Illinois) and in Germany (Frankfurt/Main and Heidelberg universities).

Dr. Schlemmer-Schulte is a Member of the Committee on Sustainable Development of the International Law Association (ILA). She was a Member of the ILA Committee on Accountability of International Organizations which completed its work in 2004. She is a Member of the Board of International Scholars of the London Forum for International Economic Law and Development, London, UK. She is a Member of the German Society of International Law (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Völkerrecht), and of further professional associations. She is also an Arbitrator listed with the Cairo Regional Centre for International Commercial Arbitration (CRCICA) established under the auspices of the Asian African Legal Consultative Committee (AALCO).

Dr. Schlemmer-Schulte has published/co-published seven books - two further books are forthcoming soon - and contributed over 20 articles to law journals. She is the editor of the Liber Amicorum Ibrahim F.I. Shihata - International Finance and Development Law (Kluwer Law International 2001).

Dr. Schlemmer-Schulte holds a Licence en Droit (L.E.D.) from France, an LL.B./J.D. (Bachelor of Laws/Juris Doctor), a Master of Laws (LL.M.) in general European Union law, a specialized LL.M. in European banking law, and a Doctor of Law (Dr.jur./Ph.D.) from Germany, and an LL.M. in international finance and business law from the United States. She is admitted to the bar in Frankfurt/Main, Germany.

Dr. George Yankey

Course Director for eCourse on 'Cross Cultural Negotiation' and 'Negotiating for Conflict and Dispute Resolution'

Dr. George Yankey is a Solicitor and Advocate of the Superior Court of Judicature, Ghana. From 1989 to 1995, Dr. George Yankey was Head of the Legal and Private Sector Investments at the Ministry of Finance. Between 1995 and 1999, he was the Director of the Legal, Private Sector and Financial Institutions Division of the Ministry. In 1999, he was appointed the Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Gateway Programme; where he served until February 2001 when he took up the post of the President of the ECOWAS Bank for Investment and Development. He left the Bank to set up his own consulting practice, and he is currently the President of The Negotiation Institute, Ghana.

Born in 1952, Dr. Yankey was a part-time Lecturer at the Ghana Law School, a Visiting Instructor at the International Development Law Institute in Rome, Italy (1992) and an Adjunct Professor of the International Law Institute/Georgetown University, Washington DC (1991 and 1993). He was a member of the National Development Planning Commission of Ghana and a member of the Boards of Directors of the National Investment Bank and the Home Finance Company. He was also a member of the Ghana Negotiating Team on Double Taxation Treaties, and a member/ secretary of the model agreements committee of Ghana. Dr.Yankey consults for the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

Dr. Yankey was educated at the University of Ghana, Legon and the Ghana Law School where he obtained his LL.B. (Hons) and B.L. Degrees, and at the University of Warwick where he obtained his LL.M and Ph.D. degrees in International Trade and Investments. He specializes in international trade and investments, international finance, intellectual property and capital markets. He is also the author of the book entitled "Intellectual Property and Technological Transfer to Less Developed Countries."